No Serpico, but no clear truth

April 7, 2003

Has Louie gone loco?

Here last week was the former highest uniformed officer
in the city, Chief of Department Louis Anemone, running to The New York
Times with his sidekick, former first-grade detective Nick Casale, claiming
to be whistle-blowers.

They said they had discovered evidence of bid-rigging,
payoffs and multimillion-dollar cost overruns at the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority, where Anemone had been hired in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror
attacks as deputy executive director and director of security.

Anemone and Casale said top MTA officials had impeded
their investigation, undermining efforts to protect the transit system
from terrorism.

Before you think of these two as Frank Serpico and
David Durk - whose allegations of police corruption 32 years ago revolutionized
the department - think again.

This is the same Louie Anemone who is known to readers
of this column as the Dark Prince. This is the same Louie Anemone who
praised Officer Frank Livoti after the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association
delegate used a choke-hold that led to the death of Anthony Baez in the
Bronx.

This is the same Louie Anemone who so humiliated Rudy
Giuliani's apartment-sharing buddy Howard Koeppel at a police funeral
that Koeppel burst into tears.

This is the same Louie Anemone who while questioning
former chief Tosano Simonetti at a CompStat crime control meeting put
up a picture of Pinocchio on the screen behind Simonetti.

As for Casale, what more is there to say about someone
who spent a few months living out of his car?

So what's really going on here? Is Louie nutso? Or
is he the victim of his own spectacularly poor judgment, caught in a downward
spiral that he can't seem to break?

"You know my reputation. I've been receiving calls
of support from all ranks of the department," Anemone said in a telephone
call Friday.

"I know I'm no Serpico. But I want to put it out in
the open. We're at the point where they left me no option. They are such
liars. What are they afraid of?"

As might be expected, MTA officials have a different
take on Anemone and Casale. So do Queens District Attorney Richard Brown
and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Daniel Castleman.

Let's start with Castleman, chief of the investigation
division. He says Casale did find serious corruption that was brought
to his attention by the MTA's executive director Katie Lapp, and that
the district attorney is investigating.

But Castleman confirmed it was he who told Lapp not
to release documents to Anemone because of the district attorney's investigation.

Now
let's turn to the MTA's inspector general, Matthew Sansverie and his report
of March 31, the day after Anemone made his accusations.

Sansverie accuses Anemone in the report of "obstruction
and intentional frustration of an MTA Inspector General's Investigation
... aided and abetted by his deputy and longtime co-worker, Nick Casale."

According to Sansverie's report, on Feb. 25, Lapp
notified him about misconduct allegations by Anemone against recently
retired LIRR president Kenneth Bauer. Anemone told Lapp that Casale had
learned of the allegations from a "confidential informant."

"In this same conversation," Sansverie wrote, "Anemone
gratuitously raised the issue that Casale was reluctant to cooperate ...
citing the fact that Casale was already the subject of an [unrelated]
misconduct investigation."

The investigation concerned allegations he had improperly
ordered an MTA lieutenant to access information from a confidential database.

Meanwhile, unknown to Sansverie and other MTA officials,
Casale contacted the Queens district attorney about Bauer in late February.

On March 27, three days before he made his allegations
public, Anemone testified under oath before the MTA. According to Sansverie's
report, Anemone said he had "made a mistake and that no confidential informant
existed."

The next day, Casale also testified.

"While he did admit under oath there never was a confidential
informant," Sansverie's report stated, "he maintained he never said there
was one."

On April 1, Brown responded to questions about Sansverie's
report by issuing a news release. "In spite of the repeated assurances
of both Mr. Casale and Mr. Anemone ... it has now been acknowledged by
each of them that no such informant has ever existed. I am disappointed
- and quite frankly, somewhat bewildered - by the actions of Mr. Anemone
and Mr. Casale."

Last week, the MTA placed Anemone and Casale on paid
administrative leave. On Friday, Anemone told this reporter he did have
a confidential informant, and identified him as a longtime MTA labor official,
Gary Dellaverson.

Dellaverson, said MTA spokesman Jim Bono, has denied
under oath being an informant, confidential or otherwise.